The new image shows JFK - who's forever youthful in the national consciousness - with sagging jowls, white hair and a higher hairline.

"General things happen in aging: Eyelids begin to droop, the mouth becomes thinner and starts to droop, even the earlobes droop," said N. Eileen Barrow, the imaging specialist who aged the photo at the Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services lab at Louisiana State University.

"It sounds more terrible than it really is and it happens slowly."

Barrow, who studied computer-generated age progression at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, used a well-known photograph of the 35th president and aged him, taking hints from photos of JFK's father, Joseph, who died at 81, and brother Ted, who is 71.

"I took a real good look at Joseph and Ted, and [made the progression] according to the aging I saw in them," Barrow said.

She rejected Ted's shaggy mane and went with the classic Kennedy coiffure, swept over to the side, but gave the president his brother's prominent jaw line.

"They [JFK and Ted] both have very wide jaws. Jowling would have been present, Barrow said. "The bone structure is already formed and it's a matter of gravity."

Staff Member

I think the press probably had a "gentleman's agreement" not to investigate/publicize JFK's health. In his day, FDR and the press probably had a similar agreement. So the public didn't hear about Kennedy's health issues.

I looked up what JFK's health problems were: He had colitis (a colon problem), prostatitis (a urinary condition), Addison's disease (affecting his body's ability to regulate blood sugar and sodium), and osteoporosis of the lower back, severe enough that he could not reach for papers across his desk or put on his own left sock and shoe.

This doesn't sound like someone who would live to be 86, but you never know.

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